With the recent introduction of a bakery set up in commercial shopping outlets or bakery departments in supermarkets, a premium is placed on working space and flexibility of product production. As many of the products are produced in relatively small runs, the economics of a bakery of this type is generally improved if as many types of product can be produced from as few dough types as possible and the number of pieces of equipment used to produce the different products can be minimised.
Dough moulding machines are conventionally used to receive a piece of pre-weighted dough and mould it to a desired shape for a specific bakery product before it is then proved and baked.
Dough moulding machines have several important common components, and these work together to sheet out, curl up and pressure mould a dough piece to a required shape. The sheeting rollers on most moulding machines are typically one or two sets of sheeting rollers that are usually adjustable so that the roller gap is able to be controlled. Small dough pieces [for example, about 80 grams] are sheeted through a gap typically 3 to 4 mm, while larger pieces of 700 grams would typically be sheeted through a wider gap of 8 or 10 mm.
The dough piece is usually pre-shaped into a ball, and has had a period of rest time to permit fermentation to occur prior to moulding, and this also adds bulk to the dough ball. The dough piece can otherwise be cube shaped, as from a divider called a D-20, or it can be oblong in a tubular shape to permit baguettes (sticks) to be made without additional hand work.
All of the above mentioned shapes are best moulded by allowing the worker to hold one end of the dough piece, as it is placed onto the sheeting rollers and passed through the sheeting roller gap as a long narrowish piece. Large loaves such as Vienna loaves, and tinned loaves greatly benefit in their shape, by this process. Simply throwing the ball of dough into the rollers results in variations in dough shape and quality, and the roller gap often needs to be wider in this case. Therefore depending on the type of product being produced, in many cases the dough needs to be placed onto the sheeting rollers with the operator holding the end of the dough as it passes through the sheeting rollers. This inevitably leads to the operator's fingers being in close proximity to the sheeting rollers creating an occupational hazard. To reduce the occupational hazard, guard systems have been considered to limit access of the operator's fingers to the sheeting rollers but these guard systems have invariably negatively impacted the ease of operation and modes of operation of dough moulding machines. In fact, guarding systems that simply place the ball of dough into the roller gap without the ability to hold the end of the dough as it passes through the rollers are generally disliked by operators.
It is the intention of the present invention to permit clear and open access to the sheeting rollers of a moulder, and permit the dough piece to be hand fed through the roller gap, in a safe and reliable manner.